A journal¡¯s editorial board has been left on the brink of resignation after an eight-month standoff with its publisher Taylor & Francis over the publication of a debate on academic publishing and the profits made by major firms.

The debate, in the journal , was due to appear last September, but was delayed by Taylor & Francis and published only at the end of last month.

Its ¡°proposition¡± paper, ¡°¡±, by four academics from the University of Leicester¡¯s School of Management, criticises the large profits made by commercial publishers on the back of academics¡¯ labours, and the failure of the Finch report on open access to address them.

The paper compares academic publishing with the music industry, which, it says, has ¡°booming¡± sales after lowering prices in the face of widespread piracy. It suggests that ¡°doing nothing to prevent the trading of electronic copies of our academic work¡± could also force prices down in publishing.

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The journal¡¯s general editor, Stuart Macdonald, a visiting professor of economics at Aalto University in Finland, said the non-appearance of the journal in September was followed, two months later, by a letter from a senior manager at Taylor & Francis demanding that more than half of the proposition article be cut.

¡°They never said why. They just said they didn¡¯t want this debate to take place,¡± Professor Macdonald said. ¡°They also said I should have got their approval before inviting debate papers, but I have never done that before and it seems quite improper.¡±

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He said matters came to a head at a ¡°very unpleasant¡± meeting in January, when the journal¡¯s editorial board threatened to resign en masse unless Taylor & Francis backed down.

The publisher eventually did so, but insisted on removing all publishers¡¯ names from both the proposition article and the four responses. Professor Macdonald reluctantly agreed, but Taylor & Francis still did not publish the debate, prompting him to withhold subsequent editions of the journal for fear they would be published in preference. The result was a ¡°huge backlog¡± of papers waiting to be published.

He was also upset that, when the edition was finally published, Taylor & Francis unilaterally added a long disclaimer to each article warning that ¡°the accuracy of the content should not be relied upon¡±.

He said the episode was illustrative of the ¡°enormous sensitivity¡± surrounding publishers¡¯ profits. He had been unable to persuade a single publisher to respond to the proposition paper, managing to elicit a riposte only from former publisher Iain Stevenson, professor of publishing at University College London.

Professor Stevenson dismisses the article as ¡°contentious and seriously flawed¡± but he said even more severe criticisms of the proposition paper had been edited out of his response. Professor Macdonald said this was done by Taylor & Francis, but he did not know why.

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Professor Macdonald said the episode had destroyed trust between the publisher and the editors, who were all considering their positions. One option was to resign and set up a rival journal. ¡°It is a mess and I just don¡¯t see why the mess was necessary,¡± he said.

In a statement, Taylor & Francis confirms that it ¡°worked with¡± the editors ¡°and, through them, the authors, to agree a version of the¡­articles¡­We have subsequently published the debate on an open access basis, at no cost to the authors, to ensure all readers can access [it] and come to their own view.¡±

Professor Stevenson said that if the editors resigned, ¡°they will find that ¡®publishing without publishers¡¯ is not as easy or as trouble-free as they fondly imagine¡±.

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But Steffen B?hm, director of the Essex Sustainability Institute at the University of Essex and co-author of one of the response articles, said the episode lent further strength to his call for academics to take publishing back in-house.

¡°This is the first time I have seen a publisher directly interfere with the autonomous work of academics and it is a very serious breach of the relationship,¡± he said. ¡°We can only keep our freedom to publish what we like if we control the publishing process.¡±

Simon Lilley, head of Leicester¡¯s School of Management and co-author of the proposition paper, said if universities launched their own branded journals, the cost of open access publishing could drop by two-thirds.

¡°Taylor & Francis¡¯ ham-fisted attempt at censorship gives some indication of the level of fear that must be running through the industry at the moment,¡± he added.

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paul.jump@tsleducation.com